Schrodinger's Time Lords
by BasiliskRules
Summary: An introspective character study of the Doctor and the Master, inspired by Series 10. Basically, the way in which the Master is like the Doctor is that the Master is *potentially* the Doctor, and vice versa. The Doctor has met other people who are like him in some ways, the whole point is that he turns people into him. But the two *began* on the same path. So the Doctor wonders...


**This is sad. Because poor Twelve, man. I mean, even if you didn't think it could really have worked after all, (which is a reasonable assumption, the Doctor himself doesn't know what to think), I bet you were begging Missy to help him after that speech, just for that passionate, heartbreaking look on his face. Don't act like you weren't.  
**

* * *

.

It's a relatively simple scenario.

You steal a time-machine and you run away.

Congratulations, you're a renegade now.

One day, your TARDIS lands on a planet you've never seen before. Small, out of the way, insignificant. It has a nice climate, interesting flora and fauna, fascinating sentient inhabitants. Nowhere near your technological or intellectual level, of course. Because almost nobody is.

But they have potential. Because almost everybody has.

What do you do?

It's simple. Almost deceptively so.

Because _I can do_ _ **anything.**_ _There's nothing I can't do._ _Nothing._ And _if you don't like it, if you want to take it to a higher authority, there isn't one. It stops with me._

(The rest of the Time Lords are gone. And when they're not, they wouldn't care, not for them. _Of course_ you make them so afraid. Who in their right mind wouldn't be?)

And then comes the Galactic Federation, the Nameless City of the Archons, Earth and the Nestene Consciousness, the planet Uxarieus. UNIT starts being a nuisance after a while. So is he, of course. Bless.

But in the back of your mind, there's the sly hope that maybe he could understand and you could do this together. If only he could. It drives you up the wall every time he doesn't.

Eventually, you break.

"You must see reason, Doctor."  
"No, I will not join you in your absurd dreams of a galactic conquest."  
"Why? Why?!"

And he looks you in the eyes with that passionate, heartbroken, pleading expression and _you don't need to own the universe, just see it-_

Oh, you're pretty sure you'll kill him one day, just to see the look on his face.

(What, whom did _you_ think we were talking about?)

* * *

.

Let's try again.

You steal a time-machine and you run away.

And you're a renegade now, and in another world, you might have been powerful and dangerous and excited.

But luckily for everyone, you really didn't leave on the best of days.

So you're simply dangerous.

Luckily for everyone, you're still young and very scared. You have family with you. So you just want to hide.

Quantum mechanics at work, fate, luck, chance, the flip of a coin by whatever gods may rule above your people. And eventually, in this reality, your TARDIS brings you to Earth.

 _"You didn't always take me where I wanted to go!"  
"No, but I always took you where you __**needed**_ _to go."_

(Sometimes it's what her thief needs _himself_ instead of what others need, if he is to change, learn, be happy, become worthy of his title.)

.

Then there are two ordinary humans, going about their lives, suddenly curious; but trying to do _good_.

 _"Have you ever thought what it's like to be wanderers in the fourth dimension?"_

(No, apparently they had not.)

Later, you pick up a rock, ready to kill a hostile, wounded caveman, and Ian Chesterton grabs your arm. What are you doing?

And the young man listens to your hasty, miserable excuse for an explanation, (you're going to have to learn to lie better than that), but he understands your real intent perfectly well, and Ian's dark eyes are locked on to your own and they firmly say _no. You don't have the right to do that._

(Somewhere, rage and bitterness override compassion, and Rose Tyler has to force him to lower his gun. Amy Pond points one at him; _Let him come back, Doctor._ Clara Oswald slaps him, hard, because he _wants_ to give up, he wants everyone to die, he wants all Daleks irreversibly evil. Donna Noble shouts at him and then begs. _Take this thing back! Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone._ )

 _Be a Doctor._

You don't know why you obey, but there's no time to argue. And grudgingly, you help with the stretcher, perhaps a bit ashamed.

You look at the two humans, and it's as if you're seeing them for the first time.

Well. Imagine that.

(And so it begins.)

* * *

.

"Look at this... Look at all those planetary systems, Doctor. We could rule them all!"  
"What for? What is the point?"

Good question. Excellent question.

(Later, much, much later, you take Lucy Saxon to the end of the universe and _there's no point. No point to anything. Not ever,_ and you're Time Lord, and you know that it's not as simple as that by any means, but you nod excitedly, because if that's true, life is a glorious struggle, and you're going to rule them all, you're going to _win-_ )

.

And you have been to the end of everything too, Doctor. Universes freezing and creations burning. _  
(I have seen things you wouldn't believe)_  
Your world has burned, the Earth has burned, twelve men have burned and risen from the ashes while everything else turns to dust. _  
(I have lost things you will never understand)_

Of course, you are the Oncoming Storm, aren't you? A dark legend, they say. He's like fire and ice and rage. He's ancient and forever. _  
(Oh, the way you burn like a sun. Like a whole screaming world on fire.)_

Because evils from the dawn of time must be fought, the Daleks must be fought, and _how are you going to win?_ Because _there's no such thing as the Doctor._ You are _the man who won the Time War_ and you were Victorious one day and the lover of chaos wants you to love it too. And oh, what if, what if one time, you hadn't stopped?

And that is why you need the mayflies.

 _(What was the promise?)  
(Be happy. I'll look after everything else.)_

* * *

.

You turn the mayflies, the ordinary people, into weapons.

Like moths to a flame, if they fly too close, if they stay too long, they get burned. But they don't, not often. Eventually, they leave you, or they forget you, or they get left behind.

(Or they die)

River Song is brave and clever and funny, and she loves you very, very much. You love her for many reasons, but not because she is like you. She isn't. If she was –whenever she is, really– she is, she would be terrible.

River has her own strength, her own beautiful darkness that needs to be fought, that leaves her untouched by the fire, that lets her weather the storm next to you. She is your equal, she doesn't _need_ to be you.

(Water quenches fire and can be just as strong)

Clara Oswald does stay with you for too long. And of course you are afraid, because she's human, and Davros had a point, and you have a duty of care, and _what have I made of you?_

But she doesn't want to be like _you._ She wants to be _the Doctor_ , so because you try very hard and because the universe takes pity, that's what she becomes as well.

(Fire can be used to warm a house, to tame a world, to save a life. It doesn't have to mean destruction. It's just that you can't have fire feeding fire, out of control. So she keeps just a single, precious spark and takes off.)

.

You turn them into _you._

But there is someone out there who is already like you, who was like you, who is what you could have been.

(A magnificent, bright flame that destroys can still be sublime, objectively beautiful. But the refined, careful fire that does not is beautiful as well and in that difference, lies an infinity.)

Such things are almost nothing to you now though, so you try and you try and you keep trying, the little bird eroding the mountain of her cruelty.

(You have been cruel too and you could have been crueler)

Because it's just _kind_ to try, the mayflies have taught you that, and you know you can help. Because you're tired of standing alone, and maybe she's tired too, and the die was cast so long ago, and who knows? Who knows what might have been? What still can be?

 _(Because I need my friend back too)_

* * *

 _._

 _"You're a bloody idiot. You know that, yeah?"  
"Of course/ Everyone knows that/ Always."_

And you can't win in the end. Of course you can't.

(You don't have to, you don't need to win, _nobody wins for long-_ )

You may have stolen a time-machine and run, so long ago. But there are times when you _can't._ You _choose_ not to run, again and again, and eventually, you just can't.

 _"You can't win."  
"I know! And?!"_

(It's okay. God knows it's not easy being kind. It's not easy to stay that way either. But she was your first friend and you both once dreamed of seeing every star together; and hope is hard to resist.)

You're both Time Lords. But time runs out for everyone in the end, no matter what path they choose, and your hearts fill with pity. For what has been wasted, the potential, for the path that could have been chosen.

 _("Because there's quite a difference isn't there? Between what was and what should have been. There's an awful lot of one but there's an infinity of the other.")_

 _._

You hold back the tears and you take her hand. In the TARDIS, in a rusting, desolated city, in an artificial countryside that will most probably be your fiery grave.

 _"I don't know/ I need to know/ You've changed. I know you have."_

Once, you whisper her name like a prayer. You don't plead, you don't have to. Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself.

Missy, you were alone, and I was not. _  
(I don't need an army. I never have, because I've got them. Always them.)  
(My friends have always been the best of me.)_

But I know, I _know_ what it's like. You don't have to be, not anymore.

Please. _Please._

 _._

"She's the only person that I've ever met who's even remotely like me."  
"So more than anything you want her to be good?"

 _Yes._

.

.

-the end-

* * *

 **See, it's interesting. The Doctor and the Master began on the same path and then chose opposite ones. And what keeps the Doctor on his, the very reason he chose it, are his human friends. And though of course it requires a great deal of self-discipline, effort, and conscious choice, I can't help but think he would consider the Master unlucky in that regard; that luck _has_ played a part in what they had the opportunity to become. And hence pity him, and wonder what might have been if the Master had chosen his path; or vice versa in a crueler universe. And of course, he hopes...**

 **(The slightly weird metaphor that I use, goeth thusly: The Doctor is a very nice metal table. And he does find many other great tables. River is a wooden one, let's say, Clara is a plastic one... The Master is a metal chair. But he is metal, the same metal, the original material is the same for both. And the Doctor goes "oh, it's such a shame that you didn't want to be a table! I mean, you would have made a brilliant table, look, this type of metal is the very best for tables, you'd have been better than me! Come on, be a table with me!")**

 **And because I'm a huge sucker for impossibly idealistic, Return of the Jedi style "I know there's still good in you!" situations. While both the audience and the other characters go "naaah, you're a bloody moron". Besides, the whole point is that redeeming the Master seems impossible. So the actors/writers/directors really don't have an easy job ahead of them. And by God, Series 10 made it seem believable, hence it's beautiful tragedy.**


End file.
